Don't be a Chicken
by Dancing In The Moon
Summary: James and Lily are at the end of their 6th year. Is anything good between them? as Sirius would say 'no way they'd need a plateful of cookies to sort their problems out'. There is one good thing things are not as bad in school as they are outside pleas


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**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters bar Calli, Kray, Erin, Amber, Tara, Greg and Edge belong to Mrs. Rowling, I make no many from this, so don't sue I'm a student!**

_Chapter one Many Meetings_

"You will kindly refrain from killing each other," barked Professor Kray as she swept back into the Potion lab. It was a timely utterance and not that far from the truth. In her short period before she had entered the classroom numerous quarrels had broken out between the sixth year Gryffindors and Slytherins, only one pair seemed immune to it.

Two sets of hazel eyes, one set flecked with gold looked up in sheer indignation.

"As if I would want to kill you," Callista murmured as the noise started to descend from the roar of a hundred dragons to a murmur of a sheepish brook.

"You couldn't kill me, even if you tried," Remus replied grinning as he tapped his friend on the nose.

Callista's hand flew to her nose to rub it and rid it of the awful ticklish sensation that the touch had created.

"Meanie," she muttered.

"You love me really."

"Only when you are not attacking my nose."

It was an easy, teasing banter that regularly occurred between them. Although it was a perfectly normal, close friend's gesture, it made them stand out. A Slytherin and a Gryffindor were, under the preconceived idea, not supposed to get on. Remus and Callista ignored this idea, they had been best friends since they were five and saw no reason to change it just because they were in different houses.

If the others in the class had shared this attitude, perhaps the future would have had a different, happier ending, but Fate's web woven by the three sisters had not chosen that path. The tension and the hatred between the various factions of people, that would grow with each passing season, was evident in the scene of the classroom. Slytherins and Gryffindors were lunging at each other, throwing punches, and hurling insults in away not unlike a Ministry or Governmental debate.

Sirius scowled, he had been about to land a punch on Nott's face when Kray had to walk in and spoil the fun. It was tempting to complete the action, but he hurriedly took his seat when he saw that Kray was turning to Lily Evans to find out what had transpired. It wasn't that Lily was like the Slytherins and land blame maliciously, but she was painfully honest and she did not like classes getting interrupted. What ever Lily had to say, Sirius knew that his name would inevitable crop up, and he had the theory that if he was sitting in his seat, Kray's eyes he would be invisible and therefore impervious to any punishment.

Taking a sideward glance at James, Sirius found that his friend had has hands full. Amused he left him to it, after all it was not a pretty girl that Prongs was helping, it was Peter. Being so small Peter had been knocked to the ground early in the brawl, and no one had noticed until the end. Sirius watched lazily as James set him on his feet and reassured their small friend that 'fly fishing was not boring and that it was of course a manly sport.'

James and Peter were last to be seated, and it was not until they were that Professor Kray launched into a scathing attack aimed most pointedly at the Gryffindors.

"….disgraceful…… babies….. points…."

This was what most of the class heard, after six years they had become immune to such speeches. Only Tara and Lily caught more, and it was only Lily who caught the full thing as Tara was too busy shooting superior smiles at Sirius when she thought a word particularly applied to him.

"Honestly," Lily tutted as they at last departed the dungeon and emerged into the sun lit passages, "We learnt nothing! I don't see why she bothered yelling, the people who it applied to weren't even listening."

Tara could not help laughing at her friend's outraged face. Only Lily would think about learning once the exams were over and the term was drawing to an end.

"Well," she said carefully, picking her words so that it would not send her friend off

into a tirade, "Well it wasn't just those four…."

There was no need to say more as Lily was happy to blame the Marauder's for anything and Tara could have sworn that she took some sort of perverse pleasure in yelling at them.

Lily was already turning and looking for some sighting of the boys. They had already scattered like crumbs from a cookie in separate directions. Unfortunately for Sirius his direction was taking him towards Lily and Tara.

"Uh oh," Sirius murmured to himself as a flaming hurricane hurled herself at him. As James could have told him, it would have been wiser to let Lily get it over with, but Sirius, the Sexy Lord, did not need to listen to anyone about girls, or so he thought.

Laughing merrily Sirius caught hold of Lily's hand before it could land on his cheek. "Why didn't you just say you wanted a piece of action with me, there is plenty to go around."

Lily tried to pull her hand out of Sirius' but he held on to it with ease. "You," she spat.

"Me?" Sirius said with an innocent expression, "Yes I know …. ARGH." His sentence trailed off in pain as Lily jabbed her nail into the tender skin under his thumbnail and thus forcing him to release his grip.

Before Sirius had time to react Lily launched into her angry tirade that she had been building up to. "You immature prat, you and your friends! You deliberately started that fight to spoil that class.

"Sheesh loosen up," Sirius said taking a step back, "it was only a bit of fun." Shaking his head at the obvious madness of Lily Evans, he headed off down the corridor to meet Erin.

Lily turned to Tara who was waiting with the patience of a long suffering friend. "Why does it feel like Sirius came out the best from that?" she asked rhetorically.

Tara linked an arm through Lily's and dragged her out towards the sunshine. 'He did not even look at me,' she thought silently, 'I must be invisible, he's dated most every girl but me.' Sirius might have been like the Greek gods, taking any girl he wanted which made him someone to be avoided, but to be ignored by him, it was worse… Out loud she said, "You know he's compensating for something when he has to act so big headed." The two girls dissolved into a fit of giggles, and could be found five minutes later still in the same state.

However, not all of the school were in the same state of high giggles, most of the Slytherins did not even know how to laugh and the teachers were concerned about matters outside the school. Their gloom seemed to be spreading in little ripples, and had touched a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw

James had just slid his cloak around Amber's thin shoulders and was talking animatedly to her. Their two dark heads bent towards each other as if they were having a conversation that no one else in the world could partake in.

"And then Edge tried to through a hex at Greg who side stepped it, not sure who it hit, and then used his Muggle boxing talents…"

James was moving his hands in large expansive gestures to try and recreate some of the excitement and havoc of the event.

It was all an effort to cheer Amber up; she hadn't been smiling much lately. James had concocted the theory that if he messed up the class he would have a funny tale to tell Amber who was in Ravenclaw and bring a smile to her face. He peered anxiously into her chocolate brown eyes and was satisfied to see a twinkle in them.

Later once James and the other three had made their plans with their outer friends for various meetings up in the summer, they met up in their dormitory which was mercifully empty.

Remus picked his way through the mounds of tossed clothes that had been created by six lazy boys to his bed. Leaping over what seemed to be a multi-coloured tangle of boxers, shirts and jeans he landed face down with his head buried in the pillow.

While the others were looking forward to the holidays (he included Sirius in his generalisation as he would be with James and his family), he was not. Sure most days of the holiday would be fun packed but there were at least two full moons before the new term, and they would be spent alone.

Remus had a fear of being on his own. When he was a child, his parents had told him that being a werewolf would mean that he would always be separated from other people and he had believed it. He had worried about what would happen if he got angry and wasn't able to control his strength ever since he had broken his father's wrist be gripping it tight in fear, and had tried to keep himself distant from people his own age. Also he had worried that he might scratch them, and infect them.

Although he had been terrified for his friends' safety when they had told him that they had become Animagus, of what would happen if anyone else found, along with all the normal fears of what would happen if he scratched or bit them but this time in their animal form, he had become dependant on them being there. Before he had scratched himself, bitten and torn and had woken if cold and feeling terribly alone, with them he had been able to let his wolf run free and wake up warm with his friends clustered around him.

'Moper,' thought Sirius with an affectionate smile, using his hand he signalled Peter and James. The three moved in a surprising moment of unity from their various positions around the room to Remus' bed. Sirius' hand went to his shoulder, James' to Remus' hair and Peter's onto his friend's back. It had been how they had woken Remus when they had brought him there animalisation news, as Sirius had called it, and the similarity was not lost on Remus, who had the details of that day very clearly imprinted on his mind.

"Lo," he said, his voice muffled by the pillow, "If you have come to tell me that you can change into various pieces of furniture I don't want to hear, it would be far to disturbing."

"I don't think that is possible," Peter said turning his gaze anxiously to James and Sirius, "is it?"

"Well if it was it would be completely pointless," James said.

"Unless we could do it Sniv…" Sirius clamped his mouth shut as Remus turned over with a look of horror on his face and Sirius felt his own face whiten. It had come out without a thought like it had done ever since first year, but it was supposed to have stopped. Ever since Snape had gone down and found Remus… it now caused an inwards shiver in Sirius. Belatedly he had seen what it had done to his close friend, seen the betrayal, the hurt and the fear and had sworn never to cause it again. However, Snape had been Sirius target for years and his name could still automatically crop up like it just had. Any mention of doing something to Snape set Remus off, he felt somehow responsible for him, he had almost killed him, and also he recognised how terrifying it would be to think that someone would want to kill you.

Peter trembled at the tension between Sirius and Remus, he hated it when any of them fought, it just wasn't right but he didn't know what to say. He wasn't an eloquent speaker, nor did he have a strong personality that would send up sparks when he spoke.

"Anyway we're getting off topic," James announced firmly as he slung an arm across Peter's shoulder and cast a sympathetic look at Sirius, whose eyes proclaimed that he was closing in on panic stricken. "Before Sirius got muddled up with furniture and getting the sniffles from Quidditch the other week he was going to say that," here he looked directly at his friend as if to say 'get on with it you bludger headed flubberworm."

"Right, er…" Sirius prepared to launch himself to the great Public Speaking Black. "Your holiday problems are solved Moony my lad, the Marauder's will be sailing by the light of the moon."

"Your mad," Remus whispered hoarsely, "you can't do magic out of school."

"Sirius and James looked it up," Peter said quietly, "only wand magic can be traced."

Remus looked up, his hazel eyes still dull, but a half hope glittered in the golden fled, "but you guys use your wands…"

James shook his head, "We don't technically have to. The wand helps you concentrate the magic to become the animal, but the animal is a part of yourself, it reflects your personality and so forth. Without the long boring details of a class the gist of it is that once you are used to your transformation, you can do it by will, the only time you need your wand after that point is if you need to make a particularly quick transformation or if you are in a highly emotional state, for example if you were panicking and unable to focus."

He raised his hand as he saw Remus' mouth forming the first syllable of a question. "We have already tried it and we can transform back and forth, and," he grinned, "if it doesn't work we can run wild as animals until its school again and you can change us back. I don't see how you can refuse us, besides the Ministry can only track us over the use of wands or if we were registered Animagi."

Remus looked at his three best friends, Peter, short with a sweet, innocent face, who although he was not brave was nonetheless a loyal friend, James who was smiling smugly, full of boyish charm and life, and Sirius … Sirius who understood what it was like to be feared and hated by his parents who was full of love for his friends.

Who could begrudge Remus the decision he finally made. He was not, as people tended to forget, a full grown adult with a wealth of experience to make judgements but a teenager. Teenagers, as people know and recognise, are irrational and cannot be expected to listen to every one of their fears. It had gone smoothly so far, and if it was as James said (he planned to check this) it was possible. There would be less pain, no more loneliness waiting for the transformation and the inevitable self harm.

"Well….." Remus began hesitantly, speaking slowly as people tend to do when they speak while thinking about their final decision.

"Good, you know we would have turned up even if you had said no." James had quickly interpreted the decreasing frown line in Remus' forehead and jumped in to settle the matter.

"But we like better when you agree," Sirius added.

Peter nodded in agreement. "We don't want you worrying, we want to make it easier for you," he said adding his opinion in his usual soft voice.

What could Remus do in the face of three friends, two of which had given statements from the heart? He pulled the three of them down in a most unmanly hug which James and Sirius tolerated only because it was Remus.

James words were the most immature but he then he planned to go through life and not grow through it. It showed how little even he knew himself.

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